The Most Unique Feats in Week 1 of NBA 2011/12

02Jan

You could be surprised how often rare stat-lines occur in the NBA and it’s a series designed to celebrate that fact. The rules are simple: it has to be something that happened less than 26 times during last 26 regular seasons [total of 58.686 team’s boxscores]. Incidentally it’s a tribute to Basketball-Reference.com for great tools and an emphasis how badly underused is enormous database owned by Elias Sports Bureau.

I covered the opening day so technically it won’t be a week 1 but next 7 days… but still it should be fun ;-)
In chronological order of days…

He finished with 11 Rebounds, 9 Points and 9 Assists which has only been matched 4 times.
In a related note Bobcats may be the best test case in a while for a measure of replacement level in the NBA standings. They look just terrible and I’m not sure that good NBDL team couldn’t be better.

They hit less than 37% of shots from the field and they shot worse from the line by 5%
which happened 6 times in the last 25 years.
I’m not sure that lockout should be blamed but there seems to be a lot of funky shooting games.
I may have to explore this topic later.

He became the first player since 1986 to collect 6 turnovers and 5 Steals in less than 20 Minutes Played!
Also he became the first player to show up in both of my unique posts for a current season ;-) But more importantly thanks to him and Cole Heat’s point guard situation looks much better than last year, doesn’t it?

He had 19 Free Throws Made and 20 Total Rebounds which never happened in used timeframe!
Most top rebounders can’t shoot free throws and most top free throw shooters can’t grab 20 rebounds… and he did it in a single game!

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December 28, 2011

He collected spectacular defensive numbers [6 Steals, 8 Rebounds, 2 Blocks] in less than 29 Minutes Played which occurred only 2 other times.
He has some upside but that was a classic random explosion… and he disappeared in a rotation quickly.
Which is kind of strange on a team going nowhere…

He scored 24 Points on 10 Field Goal Attempts including 5 threes and 6 Assists
which has been matched only 6 times in the last 25 years.
People love Manu for his playing style… while I love efficiency of his results ;-) And I wonder would he have been a bigger star if he played more minutes or he would have more injuries that way?

He finished with 15 Points and 2 Steals in only 10 Minutes Played!
Such a Oscar-worthy performance for supporting role was a first one since 1990.
And again I would question a strategy of rebuilding team – why the hell they play Raja Bell over Alec Burks? To make it clear it’s not just about this game, I just don’t understand the point of giving more minutes to veteran players while they have promising youngsters who could learn something. Do you?

By the way, this quote from book “07 seconds or less” seems very appropriate…

“Coaches are always telling players, ‘Hey, you can learn from this guy.’ They told Leandro Barbosa he could learn by sitting behind Stephon Marbury. When I was playing, they told me I could learn by sitting behind Tiny Archibald. Well, guess what? I didn’t learn shit, just like Leandro didn’t learn shit. He doesn’t play anything like Stephon, and I was a hundred times slower than Tiny. So how was I going to learn anything?”.

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December 29, 2011

24 Total Rebounds, 3 Blocks, 3 Steals and Field Goal Percentage over 77%.
I mean this is just ridiculous and it happened for 1st time since 1986. And not like we are surprised by this performance… no wonder Magic aren’t in a rush to trade him.

He had 8 Steals, 25 Points, FG=62.5% and only 2 Turnovers
which has been done for the 1st time other than Chris Paul.
I still can’t believe how he was 7th point guard drafted in 2009 even though his NCAA statistics screamed “good player” AND he was traded away by the Timberwolves who had just drafted Jonny Flynn!

December 31, 2011

They attempted 24 3-Pt Field Goals and made only two of them [less than 9%].
Ineptitude on this scale happened only for 2nd time since 1986!
Kobe missed 5 shots, Blake 6, Fisher 2, Gasol 1 and even bringing up World Peace didn’t help ;-)

He dished out a whooping 18 Assists while scoring only 2 Points
which happened for the 2nd time [last one in 1994].
I think that in an era of far too many pseudo point guards way more assists than points in the same game became just an archaic achievement … wait a second, that’s a great idea for a new post! ;-)

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January 1, 2012

They missed all 15 of their 3-Pt Field Goal Attempts and more than 50% of their Free Throws
which never happened in the last 25 years!
That’s another reason why I should check whenever we should blame lockout for funky shooting…. ;-)

He attempted 28 shots and made less than 22% of them plus he added 6 Turnovers
which surprisingly in a history full of chucksters never happened!.
It’s nice for Bynum to take a blame but he can’t hide a fact that Kobe lost this game for the Lakers.
I don’t care what happened, that’s just dreadful offense and someone really need to tell Kobe he is no longer 28 years old because it will get ugly very soon. How funny would it be if Bynum asked for a trade because he can’t stand playing with Bryant?

He grabbed 17 Rebounds and hit 5 threes
which interestingly was achieved 3rd time by Love himself… and 4 times by all other players.
It was obvious since college he will be a rebounding machine… but his offense is really surprising to me and I love his versatility… if not only for his contribution to rare feats ;-)

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If someone has reached this point in the post…
what do you think about the new version of Casually Unique?

“And here is my little commitment to this post”
Thanks, 16 times is a very solid one ;-)
BTW, I do not guarantee that I will catch every unique stat-line and I think I have to focus only on those above average [so less than 10 times] – otherwise this post will become way too long.